Shout out: AcroBack/Snow Guardians
I’d like to share a few things that my friends in the industry are up to. FIrst, my friends Shane Geraghty and Polly Morgan, both of whom worked with me on "Mobius" directed and shot the above video (respectively). Many of you may be familiar with Polly, as she is the talented director of photography who shot "Mobius" last November, and was seen all over the Canon BTS for the film. Polly and I are teaching a cinema lighting workshop next month at the Palm Springs Photo Festival BTW and there are still a few spots open… If you’re a photographer looking to learn about cinema lighting or a videographers looking to glean some amazing tips from a great DP – this is the workshop for you. I only do 1-2 of these a year given how difficult it is to pull of the lighting gear together and it’s always a lot of fun for everyone involved (myself included.) Click Here is the link to the workshop.
Shane was the stunt coordinator for the film, and runs his own firm, AcroBack, in NYC that engages a wide variety of perfomance artists for a wide variety of events. Their group is immensely talented and many of them have worked on a extensive list of blockbuster films, including the upcoming "The Amazing Spiderman." I met Shane immediately after "Reverie" was released and shot my second video ever with him and his crew in New York City. Shane introduced me to Polly 2 years ago in LA – and it was great to finally collaborate with them on our last short together!
The other project I would like to put on your radar is "Snow Guardians," a collaborate film effort about Ski Search and Rescue Patrol. The film aims to show the incredibly adverse and dangerous job that these people undertake in the back country of Montana. The project is helmed by Carson Garner (some of you may be familiar with him by the name of F9 Photo), and is unique in that he has invited a number of filmmakers out over the past two winters to help take part in the film’s realization – hence the collaborative film tag. I even traveled out to Montana to last winter to shoot some aerial footage for the film. Now after two year’s of shooting, Carson’s film is nearing completion and he has started a Kickstarter to raise the remaining necessary funds. Hop over to the Kickstarter page to a film that is really furthering along the democratization of filmmaking and includes a good number of my filmmaking friends. I definitely recommend you check out the Kickstarter page listed above to find out more about a unique collaboration and film.
Vincent,
Never commented before, but have been following you for a good while, including purchasing your HDSLR workshops from Creative Live.
Quick question about image color/quality…from the snow guardians video frame (shown above – older guy in toboggan hat) – I’m shooting with a 7D and struggling in the area of image clarity & colorization. I think that image above is amazing on both fronts, but wonder if this is achieved by crisp focus, but shooting more RAW, thus what I’m seeing is all about color correction or what? I set the 7D to the suggested user settings, edit in FCP7, but don’t know how to get my footage/stills to look great like this. Any help would be appreciated, or point me in a direction, or if anyone else is willing to assist.
Thanks for sharing your life & work,
Sean
Vincent Laforet Reply:
March 10th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Are you doing any color correcting /grading on your footage in post? Perhaps you can post a clip…
test
WOW! Amazing shots! Awesome acrobatic act! These people are unique! Great job on the acroback short film!
@Vincent Laforet,
Hi Vincent – thanks for taking the time. The only correcting I’ve done is with the FCP7 3 way colorcorrector (which I assume is only a most basic tool). Needless to say, I really don’t know much at this point about color correcting or the best tool for someone like myself to use starting out.
Aside from that Snow Guardian frame just being a clean shot, I wondered if you’d say that what I’m seeing there is basically accomplish by correcting/grading in post, or if, when you look at it, you can tell heavy or light grading was done to achieve it. I was hoping that getting your thoughts on that particular image might be a jumping off point for me. I apologize that I have really nothing to show…
Vincent Laforet Reply:
March 13th, 2012 at 12:33 am
I think a lot of it has to do with good light, perfect exposure – not as much post. I.E. talented shooters with lots of experience worked on this shoot- it is not a “post”special effect.
Are done shots done with Canond 5dmk2 ? If yes they are superb!
Vincent Laforet Reply:
March 15th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Yes mostly
@Vincent Laforet,
Hi Vincent, thanks again for your time. That helps tremendously & I get what you’re saying. I’ll start working more on the shooting side.
Thanks again – appreciate you,
Sean